54.5% of this year is downloaded

Damn it, shitballs! Now (some of) the expletives I’m going to use are out…

This is turning out to be such a roller coaster year; I should just accept and own that I’m going to be a total, desperate wreck for the rest of the year. Put on my pj onesie, comb the mascara lekker dik (so they can bleed appropriately down my cheeks) and just not wash my hair again until I can smell 2018. Well… maybe that’s not such a good idea – by the time the first hint of 2018 rolls around the only thing I’ll be able to smell is my onesie and my hair… ew. I still have that little bit of self-respect, I’ll just stick to the onesie then. I’ve cried and laughed so many times this month – and usually these happen in the same day. Not in a truly happy or upset kind of way – my laughter is hysterical-manic and my crying is shoulder wrenching sobs from the depths of the abyss. Sure, I have reasons to cry – my boyfriend is on another continent, all of my friends are in other cities / countries and I’ve just realized my life is a purposeless cog in the wheel of mainstream cultural consumption. (Well, that last bit might just be a symptom of many other things…) Despair not, I have reasons to laugh too – I’m finally spending some quality time with my family after having been abroad for years, I am making friends here (slowly, but surely) and at least I’m employed.

I turned 30 earlier this year (angel: age is just a number; demon: you’re so close to death, you might as well pick out your cremation facility) and I honestly didn’t think it was a big deal until now – 4 months later. I still don’t think it’s a big deal, but my subconscious is definitely responding to the wrong conviction, because I was doodling a mini essay today, as I do; I began writing the sentence “I turned…” and promptly burst out crying. Granted, I had been sobbing earlier in the day too; this could’ve just been reflected misery, but that phrase definitely triggered something. Oh fuck. I am not going to be that person who reinvents their life, just because they blew out a whole cake-full of candles on their birthday (well, if I’d had a birthday cake, I would have – you can taste the self-pity can’t you). I can’t be that person; I just spent the last 6 years traveling, visiting the most amazing places, meeting the most interesting people and eating every weird thing I can buy with pesos, Taiwan dollars, or reais. Why would I despair of not having lived the life I “should’ve lived when I was younger”? I did!

I also refuse to believe that coming home made me depressed – I am loving seeing my family and though making new friends might be tough when you’re not in university anymore or in a big company, it’s not impossible. I mean… I believe that I’m a pleasant, well-adjusted (ahem) person who can have a decent amount of unawkward small talk over a glass of wine. Believe me, I checked this theory – for a week I was writing about how to have successful human interactions, because I wasn’t sure I was having any. (I think I’ll still write those…) I haven’t killed anybody, so that should at least count for something. My baseline is a really happy place and I though I’m always convinced I can be doing more, I am generally a satisfied, content person.

Then, of course, you get the one day where everything just falls apart – my phone won’t connect to wifi, a romantic interest is ghosting me (my bf and I are polyamorous) and even the blood bank won’t take my blood! For low blood pressure, of all things. My body clearly isn’t feeling my anxious vibes.

Not to go on and on about the negative; that’s not what this post is about – it’s actually an expression of how incredibly high and low this year is getting with such consistency and extremity, that I’m kind of looking around for that bar-seatbelt they pull down to hold you in your seat at an amusement park. I’m really enjoying my work and the people I work with. It’s a small office and after being here for a couple of months it sincerely seems like everyone gets along, it’s amazing. Before The Ghosting, Mr. Awesome was… well, awesome. Sensitive, incredible conversationalist and passionate about what he does. He had (has… I’m assuming he’s not dead; is he dead?) a contagious, warm smile and (I cringe before I write this, but I stand by it) the kindest eyes. He encouraged me to sign up for the martial arts classes I’ve been wanting to do for ages and this week I’m going to my first kickboxing class. This, too, is a high point in my year, together with the running club I’ve joined and the training I’m doing. For the first time in years I’m consistently waking up early, putting in a decent workout and feeling not just good about my health and myself, I’m feeling fantastic. I even got my hair cut, just to cement that feel-good jazz.

I’m looking forward to the rest of the year, because I honestly have no fucking idea where it’s going to go or how it’s going to end. Frankly, I just want to get it over with, as well, so I can get off this “Tunnel of Terror” and get onto the “Lazy Boats”; just for a little while.

Book review: 1808 Flight of the Emperor

1808: Flight of the Emperor Image by Laurentino Gomes on Wikipedia’s Creative Commons

I’m a sucker for a well-researched history book, especially one where it feels and “sounds” like the author is sharing all of his own passion and excitement for the topic with me. This is exactly how Laurentino Gomes’ 1808: Flight of the Emperor comes across and flies with his subject matter.

This was an incredibly interesting book to read – not only as a reflection of colonial Brazil (some of which is still so recognizable there today), but also as a reflection of European aristocracy and how very short the Portuguese model fell compared to the Golden Age of Europe’s French, Spanish and German royals, just to name a few. Of course in the early 19th century you couldn’t do everything right by our standards today, but some of their outrageous ways made me cringe and laugh just as much as I imagine the author did on finding these nuggets of not-so-appropriate-for-the-dinner-table information. For example, Gomes tells of how Portugal’s sewage system was so far inferior to the rest of European civilization, they actually still emptied their “night soil” and chamber pots from their windows (yes) directly into the street. Jeez. Another one that has stuck by me is how the Emperor (Dom) Joao not only refused to bathe, his tailors had to wait for him to go to sleep in order to repair the clothes he would likewise refuse to take off. Laurentino Gomes mentioned that there are a myriad more such stories that he didn’t have space to fit into this book… I don’t even dare to imagine.

Besides the Portuguese-Brazilian royal family, Gomes had a lot to say about the politics between England and France at the time, the state of labour and slavery in colonial Brazil as well as some trickle through effects that have shaped contemporary Brazilian culture and politics. Wow, all that in a non-fiction, conversational super-book. I loved every second of it.

Apparently others agreed – the book won 3 awards; one from the Academia das Letras and two Prêmio Jabuti awards.

Book Review: The Pillars of the Earth

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

I have finally gotten around to read the first of two books in the Kingsbridge series by Ken Follet; they were super popular and got great reviews at one stage. The two books themselves are quite extensive and from first glance they look like they have the potential for that “epic story” that many fantasy writers seem to manage. I’m still reading the second book, but they both focus on a town called Kingsbridge, in England, the site of a cathedral of some repute and revolving around the people who live there – from monks to merchants and from gentry to peasantry. Since I’m still busy reading the second book, this review only concerns the first book The Pillars of the Earth.

The story-line follows the building of the Kingsbridge cathedral, but first the book starts out in a very intriguing way – the hanging of a foreigner, the curse of a wronged woman and three powerful men fearful of what they had done. The significance of this opening impacts the story both on a superficial level (in that the woman becomes an important character) and on a layered level (in that secrets related to these events are revealed later on). However, the bulk of the story is a bit more down-to-earth: young romance, cruel nobility and sly clergy. In fact, the plot relied so heavily on these pop-culture tropes that I felt like I could guess at most new characters’ personalities even before they were introduced, just by their class description – the rich girl with curly brown hair is, of course, the sweetheart; the tall, handsome landowner is, wait for it, cruel and chauvinistic; and the poor, shy boy with red hair is, yep, an unappreciated genius. What’s more, the characters never changed, there was no development – they were born into the book a certain way and stayed that way for decades of plot. Nobody can boast that they are the same person, believe the same things or even talk the same all through their lives… but okay, maybe that’s difficult to write into a book without seeming too inconsistent… the characters just felt flat and unimaginative.

Honestly the story-line itself had the same feeling. Sure, all characters, good and bad, got a good dose of fortune and misfortune throughout, but the way it was administered was extremely predictable. Halfway into the book the recipe is terribly, consistently clear – the “good guys” win something, then lose something, the “bad guys” lose, then gain. It was like a rhyme you could recite “one for me, one for you, one for me…” and on and on, really, all the way to the end. Well, I finished the book not quite satisfied, but that’s life.

Then why am I reading the second book (World Without End), you may ask? The blurb promised more outside influence – plague, famine, war, prosperity. I’m almost halfway and there seems to be much more of a variety of characters, motivations and journeys. I’m hopeful. 🙂 Luckily you don’t need to read the first book in order to “get” the second. It plays out in the same town, around the same cathedral, but enough years have passed that the initial characters have very little influence on the plot and the context is completely new. Well, I wouldn’t say the first book was necessarily bad, but it was painfully average. Let’s see how the second one turns out 😉

Dark Tourism

When you think about “travel” there is a specific image that pops into your head. Maybe a memory of the last trip you took; perhaps the one you’re planning now, even if it’s still just a dream. For me somehow it’s sunshine and lots of walking. Something that probably doesn’t crop up is the tragic side of history: the parts of exploration that expose the traveler to stories of individual heartache or mass grief. From the rolling head of unlucky monarchs to the ghostly echoes of a thousand footsteps over an ancient battlefield – these places attract attention as well as tourists just as surely as the romance of Paris or the symbol of hope of New York’s Statue of Liberty.

In fact, in the same city of Lady Liberty you’ll scratch the surface of what “Dark Tourism” is. Those who take a silent moment at Ground Zero are not only those who lost a loved one there, people from all over the world go there to commemorate and commiserate. For the same reason Auschwitz and Tienanmen Square are popular; in visiting and keeping these places and events in our collective memory, we may ward off the potential of it ever happening again. “We do not forget, so it doesn’t happen again” – as in the words of the group “No More Torture” (Tortura Nunca Mais) who protested during the fall of the Brazilian dictatorship. We are stewarding our human narrative and guarding our actions and hopefully the actions of our leaders from going so far astray again.

Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China, 1988 Image by Derzsi Elekes Andor licensed under Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0

However, that’s only the tip of the iceberg of what dark tourism means. Digging deeper, we find the popularity of haunted houses and abandoned theme parks with all of their accompanying stories of horror (whether real or fabricated). Ok… chalk these up to thrills and adrenaline; file these in the same category as roller coasters and bungee jumping. People have an illogical love of the extreme and inexplicable, because (ironically) it makes us feel alive. Even I peek into the dark windows of an empty, abandoned hospital on my way back from work every day.

Let’s examine this closer under the magnifying glass one more time and look at these places that truly carry the word “dark”. There are hundreds of Youtube videos about the “creepiest” places to visit as well as articles telling the sordid, bloody histories of anomalies of nature – serial killers. Far from leaving people only with the willies or a cold chill up the nape of your neck, there are hordes of travelers who pursue these places where the worst things have happened. Tourists enjoy Japan’s Aokigahara forest not only for it’s beautiful, verdant forestiness… this is where hundreds of people come each year to commit suicide in privacy and solitude (in 2003, official stats put the number at 105, according to the Aokigahara Forest website). Nothing altruistic is served by going to these places, in fact the Japanese have stopped releasing official numbers for how many people die in the forest for fear of encouraging others (according to the VICE special from 2012). I am not saying it’s not good visiting these places, or that people shouldn’t! If I had the chance, I would be there too… maybe not taking smiling selfies, but to check out a place with such a reputation? Sure. Other similar sites include the Czech Republic’s Sedlec Ossuary which is a World Heritage Site, and for what? The chapel is built out of 40 000 – 70 000 people’s skeletons and receives about 200 000 visitors annually. Then there’s the pre-Colombian city of Chichen Itza with its bloody history, built by the Mayans and where human sacrifice took place regularly at the Sacred Cenote, together with offerings of gold, just like in Disney’s Road to El Dorado (Chichen Itza receives 1.2 million visitors a year).

Traveling is a joy in and of itself and needs no justification, but I would think that people would choose to visit sunny beaches and high, green mountains over musty catacombs and dry, chalky chapels, but too each his own. It is interesting for me to see what other people find fascinating and it’s striking how people are riveted to the weird, the macabre and what’s on the periphery of disturbing sometimes.

Sedlec Ossuary Image by Romanm licensed under GNU Free Documentation License

Aokigahara Forest Image by Simon Desmarais licensed under

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March 13, 2016 · 12:17 pm

3 Great Reasons to Visit South Africa

South Africa, the southern tip of the dark continent; dark not only because of how little people know about it (“that’s where they manufacture dictators, right?”), but by how often people cast their shadow on our roofs when they fly over the continent on their way to “somewhere nicer”. When I tell people I am from South Africa responses run the gamut, from ‘I really want to visit Cape Town’ (you should!), to ‘I hear the crime rate is bad’ (isn’t it anywhere?) and even surprisingly often a bewildered expression at my not being black. Ahem. Well, allow me to introduce you to our beautiful rainbow nation and give you a couple of compelling reasons why you should put it at the top of your travel list!

First things first… there are spots in South Africa that I would recommend you don’t go, but every country and every major city is the same. Keep an eye out, don’t flash around your smartphone and stick to populated areas. That said, it’s not a country with stellar public transportation, so if you go out at night, use your own (or rental) car; I hear Uber is now up and running out here, so that is an option too.

Finally, we can get to the fun, the magic and the enchantment of South Africa. I myself haven’t been back there in a couple of years, so my nostalgia wishlist includes three places that I would recommend to anyone and everyone; in fact I’m planning on dragging friends and family there with me at the first possible opportunity…

1. Kruger National Park

One of many places you can do breathtaking safaris, look out over the golden veld and admire both fauna and flora from the mother continent. Elephants slowly but surely crossing kilometres as they graze and let out their “inner calf” when they roll and spray in the watering hole; hyenas giggling and cackling as the sun sinks pink and purple into the horizon… A very peaceful image and really that is the best place to disappear for a week or more, forget about cellphone coverage, status updates and just let go. The Kruger National Park itself is really big and covers almost the entire SA-Mozambique border.

The park is unquestionably popular among foreign and domestic tourists, especially during the dry months, when there is no rain or long grass to obscure your view. So, if you don’t want to drive around yourself and squint into the middle distance looking for a flicking ear or a swatting tail (it can be hard to spot animals in the bush…) there are rangers that can take you out for guided safaris. Besides being familiar with the regular habitats of certain groups, they also sometimes keep tabs on some bigger game. Since all animals in the park are wild, rest camps, lodges and camp sites are fenced and it’s totally prohibited to get out of your car when driving around the reserve.

The Kruger National Park tradition: Get up at 5:30am (yep, you read that right), breathe in that first smell of creamy coffee and get out there in the bush to catch nocturnal animals slinking back to their lairs after a night of veld festivities!

Elephant at the Kruger National Park

2. Durban

Just south of South Africa’s border with Mozambique, on our “north coast” you’ll find the urban-beach sprawl of Durban welcoming you with open arms. The sparkling, white sandy beaches stretch from way north of Durban (Umhlanga being one of the most popular) to Margate in the south, including beaches perfect for surfing, scuba diving and watching the incredible annual sardine run, where billions of sardines spawn from May to July just off the coast. Not only is this in itself breathtaking to see, but it also attracts other oceanic wildlife that is usually a rare sight, including dolphins, many varieties of sharks and other game fish.

Although there are a million things to do in Durban (skydiving, bungee jumping, shopping, hiking, etc), I am used to Durban being my relaxing beach holiday destination. Stretch a towel out on the soft sand and bury my nose in a book… and often dip my toes in the deliciously warm water of the Indian Ocean. There are endless gig guides on live music, cultural events and general mingling opportunities in Durban; however, if I am looking forward to a night on the town, Cape Town is where almost everything happens.

The Durban tradition: No trip to Durban is complete without the signature, home-grown dish of “bunny chow”, with its unique touch of Durban Indian cuisine. I have even encountered this specific gastronomic delight in other countries, though usually it’s made by South Africans, for nostalgic expats hungering for a little taste of home. In principle it’s a loaf of bread, cut in half and hollowed out with warm, spicy Indian curry filling the fluffy inside, but that is only the basic idea, to which everyone adds their own touch and their own particular flavour.

3. Cape Town

That brings me to the metropolis – the Mother City – home to hipsters, retros and trend-seekers; haven to art lovers, free thinkers and the perpetually entertained. Cape Town is an incredibly diverse city, from foreigners just passing through and filling the streets with their musical accents, to Cape Townian locals wishing their city would stay untouched by the masses of curious “African adventure” seekers. Many people who were not born in Cape Town feel just as “foreign” in this cradle of our modern rainbow nation concoction, so that even us who have SA running through our veins are only “approved” as Cape Townians after years (and years) of living in the city and breathing the sweet, mountain air. That hasn’t stopped anyone settling and making their dream home in the Mother City, though. People keep streaming in from the land, air and sea to sample food, fashion and fine wine in this iconic city. These days it is not even strange to brush shoulders with celebrities and famous personalities at farmers’ markets, world-class restaurants and even boutique chocolate shops that line streets in the city centre. However, the Cape Town basin, nestled in the shadow of our own Table Mountain is only one part of Cape Town magic; so much of the region’s charm and what people fall in love with lie on the periphery – the lush, green peninsular nature parks and Boulder beach (where you share the beach with penguins sunning themselves) on the one hand and little beach towns each with its own spirit that smiles its way into your heart. Simon’s Town, Fishhoek and Hout Bay are only the ones I lovingly carry in my heart and in my memories, but there are dozens more to explore. This is a part of the country where the best thing you can do is rent a car and get lost in the mountain passes and what we call the “Garden Route”.

The Cape Town tradition: Oh my gosh there are so many, but perhaps the thing that makes me feel most at home is when I have a bottle of rich, local wine and I drive out to Chapman’s Peak Drive: a 9km road that looks like it was literally carved into the rock, with thrilling drops right into the ocean and the most magnificent view you can ever have of the sun setting on turquoise, aquamarine water. Park anywhere where you find a little inlet or rest stop (there are many) and just drink in the extraordinary reality of where you are and who you’re with, even if it’s just you and your own alter ego.

Cape Town sunset

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February 18, 2016 · 6:09 pm

Critica do livro “The Book of Night Women” pelo Marlon James

[Spoilers]

 

As prateleiras já estão cheias de livros sobre a vida dos escravos e os que eu já li comtêm peços de verdade chocantes, horríveis e monstruosas. Ainda que muitas pessoas e gerações proximas contem essa historia, será cada vez mais difícil não contar em uma maneira usada.

Recentamente o filme 12 years a slave (12 anos de escravidão no Brasil) capturou a atenção de multidões – um bom exemplo de narrativa cativante entre tantas outras não ouvidas. The Book of Night Women é mais um em essa tendencia – uma historia bem-feita, bem-contada que tornou real para mim a realidade pavorosa de vida sob um “mestre” (de fato sob toda a família do mestre).

Acontece na Jamaica no século 18, na propriedade de uma família britanica; o ponto da vista é das mulheres escravizadas que cuidam da família Wilson mesmo. A influência mais forte é de Lilith, uma moça que nasceu e foi criada na propriedade. Logo que eu começei a ler, o jeito de escrever me impressionou – o autor (Marlon James) usa a maneira de falar da Jamaica contar a historia, camada “patoá”. Inicialmente foi difícil ler, mas quando me acostomei, isso aumentou a riqueza do enredo. O autor não compartilha só a vida dos escravos, mas também mostra a vulnerabilidade cruel de ser uma mulher nessa situação. O perigo do senhor branco e dos homens negros (que viveram sob as mesmas condições das mulheres) às mulheres era nojento. Elas eram tão ameaçadas porque eram mulheres: o, assim chamado, sexo fragil… que unjusto! Eu não consigo imaginar que eu sobreviveria se eu vivesse assim.

Bom, o livro começa com vida e termina em morte e sangue. O livro não é vazio de luz, nem de amizade ou de amor… e isso me prendeu atenção.

Um livro maravilhoso!

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January 10, 2016 · 2:06 pm

Book review: The Windup Girl

by Paolo Bacigalupi

The Windup Girl Image by Moshe Reuveni licensed under Creative Commons

This was a book that came highly recommended by a trusted source and no wonder! It feels like top-of-the-shelf steampunk and reads like some of the best fantasy fiction I know. The characters all have strong individual voices, and in the book’s 350-odd pages, a couple of characters go through intense internal conflict or develop and change subtly.

At first the title made me think of gears and clockwork and even the girl’s described movements seem almost steam-powered, but about a third way in I realized she’s simply a genetically engineered organism. Well, “simply” doesn’t really do it justice, because it is implied that her human genes were spliced with a number of other animal genes. One character jokes that she must have some Labrador in her to be so automatically and helplessly obedient. Through the course of the book you realize how far-reaching the bio-engineering was – in many ways (some of them quite dangerous) she is the “improved human organism”, though she is not aware of this and her manufacturer certainly tries to train and punish out even the inkling of such a thought from all young windups. In fact, to further create a gap between windups and regular people, they are made more identifiable (and therefore isolated and excluded from “normal society”) by their so-called heechy-keechy movements: a stutter-stop motion. 

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January 6, 2016 · 5:45 pm

Uma crítica do livro: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

Claro que eu não sou uma nativa de portugues… então esse aqui combina duas coisas que eu adoro: ler livros e aprender linguas novas. 🙂 Se você tem correções, por favor me mande, eu lhe agredeço.

Beijos!

 

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August 

Pela Claire North

[Cuidado: contém alguns spoilers]

Wow… Passaram-se apenas três dias desde que abri o livro até eu fechar a página final. Ainda até a metade da historia eu não sabia exatamente o que aconteceria, nem como terminaria. Embora o começo abra com a mesma frase que o capítulo final (e claro por essa altura faz sentido) e embora o primeiro capítulo já introduza o foco do enredo, ainda não é uma história linear (kkk – uma piada interna para a gente que já leu).

Na verdade The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August tem só duas personagens principais; um deles é o narrador e os personagens menores fornecem contexto delicioso e apoiam o enredo. Certamente o Harry é o protagonista são e racional com quem a gente pode se relacionar; é através dele que o leitor vive várias vidas animadas e bem-intencionadas. (Spoiler…) O Vincent é “o outro”, o antagonista; a gente perpetuamente e repetidamente suspeita dele na última metade o detesta. Não falarei mais sobre os dois. 😉

O escritor aborda o assunto de viagem no tempo e universos múltiplos na forma diferente que eu já vi. Tem muito mais ordem e coesão, não apenas uma situação turbulenta. Tem a imortalidade através um ciclo infinito da mesma bobina da vida… embora a bobina sempre progrida para frente. Claro, pessoas que passassem séculos experimentando o mesmo ciclo do tempo de novo e de novo tornariam entediados ou enlouqueceriam (imagina que você vive de nascimento até a morte, envelhecendo como todos, morrendo como as outras pessoas, porém você faz isso duas, dez, cem vezes). Alguns desses tipos de pessoas tentam mudar o mundo de forma que afetam a si mesmos e também ao futuro, de maneira irrevogável e catastrófica. É aí que o nosso herói enfrenta o seu arqui-inimigo com relacionamentos adequadamente complexos e motivos obscuros adicionado na mistura diabólica.

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December 28, 2015 · 12:09 am

Book review: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

By Claire North

[Warning: some spoilers]

Wow… It took me three days to open this book on the first page and close it on the last. Even halfway through the story I didn’t know exactly where it was headed or what the end was gearing up to be. Even though the introduction starts with the same phrases as the last chapter (and of course makes much more sense by then) and Chapter 1 already sets out the main plot focus, it is not a strictly linear narrative (heehee – inside joke to those who’ve already read it).

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August really only has two main characters, one of which is the narrator, and a handful minor characters who provide delicious context and support the plot. Naturally Harry is the sane, rational protagonist with whom we can relate and through whom we can live various exciting, well-meaning lives. (Spoiler) Vincent is the “other”, the antagonist, perpetually and consistently who we come to suspect halfway through and who we come to hate at about two thirds. I’ll say no more about them.

Time travel and multiple universes are approached very differently in this book than I’ve seen in other places. There is much more order and cohesion here. It is immortality through an infinite looping of the same reel, albeit through a forward progression of loops. Of course people who spend centuries experiencing the same looping of time over and over again get bored or go insane (imagine living from birth to your deathbed, aging like all people to, dying like all people do, but doing it twice, ten times, a hundred times). Others… try to change the world in ways that not only affect themselves, but the future, in irrevocable, catastrophic ways. This is where our protagonist faces his enemy, his nemesis, with suitably complex relationships and motivations thrown into the diabolical mix.

 

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December 27, 2015 · 12:47 pm

Book review: Bodies, Pleasures and Passions

A book by Richard G Parker

I’ve been living in São Paulo, Brazil for about 18 months now and decided it was as good a time as any to read something with an anthropological bent and what could be more interesting and exciting than reading about something that plays a big part in shaping Brazilian identity: sex. That is not exactly what I was combing the Internet for, but when I saw a mention of this book it was immediately on my list. I have finally finished reading it, so here’s what I think…

It’s a great mix between academic paper and historical narrative; it doesn’t really feel like a linear narrative, even though it follows the evolution of Brazilian culture (especially with regards to sexual life and sexuality) in a chronological way. However, it’s not as dense (read “impenetrable”) as an academic paper. It’s like I’m talking to the author about his research results, which to me is incredibly interesting. Richard Parker weaves a coherent and consolidated picture with both qualitative research and anecdotal inserts. The anecdotes don’t necessarily give a scientific basis, but they give colorful illustrations and explanations for what he found in his studies.

Of course Parker starts from the era where the first written records can be found – the explorers who initially arrived in Brazil. They wrote reports and diary entries about meeting the local people, about their shameless promiscuity in dress and behaviour. What they don’t mention in their reports, but what the author makes clear, is how that influenced the explorers’ behaviour and how the sexual expression of the native Brazilians not only impressed the explorers themselves but also the repressed European society they came from and shared information with.

Then he jumps to the colonization period, with land owners and their slaves (involuntary concubines?) and of course this had a profound and lasting impact on modern sexual attitudes. There is an interesting mix between European and Brazilian sexual attitudes, however the European model being the “correct” one at that time, dominated sex and society for a very long time. I would argue it is still very much present in contemporary Brazil.

Besides the historical side of sexuality, the book explores eroticism and present day socialization / initiation into sexual life, along with specific Portuguese terms and expressions full of sexual ambivalence. Though he mentions specific cases of erotic socialization to illustrate a segment of Brazilian culture, I’m not sure how representative that is of all Brazilians from all walks of life. The religious, medical and hedonistic perspectives which all helped shape sexuality and how people talk about sexuality are very interesting beyond the Brazilian model. I think many of those conclusions are valid for my own culture as well.

Last but not least, Parker scrutinizes the spirit and debauchery of carnaval and where that fits into the sexual identity of the modern Brazilian. This is an interesting chapter, because to me it seems like carnaval is a big contradiction… People say they are very conservative Catholic (even though they rarely put that into practice); however, during carnaval there are near-naked bodies not only plastered on every television, advertisement or poster, but it’s celebrated by young and old alike. As he says: “[Carnival] has become a metaphor for Brazil itself – or at the very least, for those qualities that are taken as most essentially Brazilian, as the truest expression of Brazilianness”

A book worth reading!

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